Amy Winehouse's family pay tributes as album sales surge

Amy Winehouse's home in north London was inundated by fans leaving floral tributes following news of her death on Saturday. Photograph: Tony Kyriacou/Rex Features

Fans of Amy Winehouse, who died on Saturday afternoon, have honoured the singer not only with tributes and flowers, but by buying her music. Sales of her album Back to Black and several of her singles have seen a huge surge in sales.

In the seven hours after the confirmation of her death and the closure of the charts, Winehouse's second studio album made a return to the charts, five years after its original release. Sales of the album increased by 37 times between Friday and Saturday, with track sales up by 23 times, according to data from the Official Charts Company.

The family of the singer, speaking for the first time on Sunday, said they had been left "bereft" by her death, describing her as "a wonderful daughter, sister, niece". In a statement they said: "She leaves a gaping hole in our lives. We are coming together to remember her and we would appreciate some privacy and space at this terrible time."

Krissi Murison, editor of NME who had interviewed Winehouse, said the singer's impact on British music would continue to be felt for many years. "Her influence has been phenomenal and I think we absolutely will remember her as one of the British pop greats alongside artists like Dusty Springfield," said Murison. "She clearly opened the door for lots of other female artists. She was a jazz singer but it was soul, her soul, in her lyrics that meant that it didn't matter what kind of music you were in to – you couldn't help but be moved."

Winehouse re-entered the charts on Sunday with Back to Black placed at 59. Martin Talbot of the Official Charts company predicted she is likely to be in next week's top ten as people continued to revisit her music.

"For the world and British music to lose such a talent and icon yesterday is truly tragic. Back to Black is one of the greatest albums of the last 20 years and its hardly surprising that people are going back to it," he said. "Behind this tabloid figure she was this immensely talented person who produced a huge album that was loved around the world."

There was further speculation about how the singer, who had well-documented and long-running problems with drugs and alcohol, died. Police confirmed only that she was found dead at her home in Camden, north London just before 4pm on Saturday and a postmortem would be carried out on Monday morning.

In one of her last public appearances Winehouse appeared on stage with her 13-year-old goddaughter, Dionne Bromfield, at the iTunes festival at the Roundhouse in Camden, urging the public to buy her album. She appeared cheerful, but showed familiar signs of intoxication, dancing unsteadily as her goddaughter sang.

It followed a disastrous performance in June when she was booed off stage in Serbia after appearing more than an hour late, slurring through songs, dropping her microphone and repeatedly leaving the stage. It was supposed to be a 12-day European comeback tour, but further dates were cancelled with her management saying she would be given "as long as it takes" to return to her best.

NME journalist Alan Woodhouse, who worked briefly with Winehouse when she was a teenager doing night shifts at World Entertainment News Network, said everyone who cared about her and her music had been shocked to see the performance.

"It was embarrassing but it was so obvious she needed help. She shouldn't have been doing those shows, she was a complete mess. You can't blame anybody, it must have been a very hard situation to deal with and perhaps [her management and label] thought she would be OK. But why did no one say before she went on stage that money is just not that important?"

Comedian and former drug addict Russell Brand paid written tribute to the singer saying they had "shared an affliction, the disease of addiction". He accused the media of being more interested in "tragedy than talent". On his website he wrote: "We have lost a beautiful and talented woman to this disease. Not all addicts have Amy's incredible talent. Or Kurt's [Cobain] or Jimi's [Hendrix] or Janis's [Joplin], some people just get the affliction. All we can do is adapt the way we view this condition, not as a crime or a romantic affectation but as a disease that will kill."

About this article

Amy Winehouse's family pay tributes as album sales surge

This article was published on
the Guardian website
at 16.28 EDT on Sunday 24 July 2011.
It was last modified at 11.30 EDT on Tuesday 20 May 2014.
It was first published at 12.17 EDT on Sunday 24 July 2011.